Officials warned against an ‘offence of being homeless’. Ministers pushed ahead
Sunday, 31 May 2026
Police struggled to imagine what an “offence of being homeless” would look like while housing officials warned rough sleeping women and young people could be pushed from well-lit public places into greater danger, new documents reveal.
Oranga Tamariki opposed applying the powers to under 18s, Treasury said the proposal did not stack up, Corrections staff were concerned about the impact on prisons and justice officials warned criminal justice responses to behaviour driven by homelessness, poverty and mental health were often ineffective and raised significant rights issues.
The Government instead ignored this advice and chose the hardline option, even after officials warned it could criminalise homelessness.
More than 1000 pages of documents, advice and communications released under the Official Information Act show Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith began work on the controversial move-on orders as early as July 2024.
What followed was a year-long struggle inside government over how to define the problem: was this about aggressive behaviour and disorder or was the Government giving police power to move visible homelessness out of public spaces?
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Moving on: The controversial plan to shift people from the CBDs
The Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill, introduced this year, would allow police to move people on for rough sleeping, passive begging, setting up personal possessions or behaving in a way that suggests they intend to inhabit a public place.
The powers would apply from age 14, and breaching an order could carry a fine of up to $2000 or three months in prison.
The bill has been roundly criticised by housing providers, opposition parties, the Criminal Bar Association and faith leaders. But it has been welcomed by some business leaders, especially in Auckland.
Goldsmith said disorderly behaviour in public places was something the Government had been concerned about since being elected.
“The Government stands by the approach it has taken,” he said.
Documents show the Ministry of Justice started policy work in July 2024.
“In preparation for the advisory group’s establishment, our minister has asked us to provide preliminary advice in the following focus areas,” a civil law official at the Ministry of Justice wrote to a number of police staff.
That email refers to the Ministerial Advisory Group for the Victims of Retail Crime, which was headed by outspoken advocate for dairy owners Sunny Kaushal and set up that same month.
The areas Goldsmith had asked for preliminary advice on were “tackling anti-social behaviour through the criminal law”, the use of facial recognition technology for crime prevention, and enabling security guards to be more effective.
Move-on orders were one of the issues a justice official told police they wanted to discuss.
Almost immediately, the work became framed around homelessness in city centres.
“You might need to provide more specificity around what a homelessness offence might be,” a police policy manager replied.
“It's difficult to envisage an offence of being homeless.”
Police’s preference at that stage was for an infringement-only penalty, with a power of arrest, so offenders could be released with an infringement or written warning and avoid adding to an already stretched justice and courts system.
Existing offending behaviour was generally already covered by law and applied equally to “homed people”.
The manager also said it was not clear what immediate impact a move-on order would have and raised the risk that the problem would simply be displaced, people would return, or moving on homeless people would increase their likelihood of offending and require more police and court intervention.
In later advice, police said there wasn’t the evidence that public disorder was on the rise - in fact its data showed it was at a 10-year low.
“Police does not support criminalising rough sleeping and non-aggressive begging.”
Police suggested Justice also speak with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which the manager said would likely “attack the problem from the angle of prevention”.
From the outset, HUD said creating an offence was disproportionate, would further harm people experiencing homelessness, and was based on limited evidence. It also said the advice was “silent on international evidence suggesting the proposed approach is not effective at addressing these issues”.
“The proposal has the potential to cause further harm to people experiencing homelessness, by limiting or preventing access to essential support and accommodation,” HUD advisers warned.
“This approach could also compromise rather than supplement recent Government investment into short-term actions to reduce homelessness.”
If progressed, they warned that a lack of distinction between anti-social behaviour and homelessness creates a risk of de-facto criminalising homelessness.
The push to capture visible homelessness-related behaviour continued through until at least November last year, when Goldsmith met with other ministerial colleagues about “Auckland actions”.
Justice notes prepared for the meeting show officials understood Goldsmith wanted the orders to apply to activities that were disorderly, offensive, threatening or disturbing, interfered with trade or business, obstructed a public way, breached the peace, or caused anxiety.
The note then says that, “to get to the crux of the issue that Auckland is facing”, Goldsmith had emphasised capturing two specific things: people occupying footpaths, explicitly described as “people who are homeless who are set up on a footpath in busy retail spaces”, and all forms of begging, including active and passive requests for money, goods or services.
That’s despite earlier advice recommending new powers be focused on behaviour, not mere presence, and warned move-on orders should not be used to criminalise homelessness or “those who appear undesirable”.
Other agency feedback later raised concerns about vague terms such as “footpath”, “reasonable distance”, “causing anxiety”, “reasonable excuse” and whether a person was “begging”.
Goldsmith later agreed that the threshold for issuing move-on orders would not include causing anxiety to a person. But he did agree the orders should connect with obstruction of a public way and apply from age 14.
Oranga Tamariki did not support move-on orders applying to young people aged 14 to 18 because there were existing care and protection and youth justice responses were already available, age-appropriate and effective.
“International experience shows move-on powers risk being used disproportionately against young people. Young people aged 14-19 years old represented more than half of all those subject to a move-on power according to a study in New South Wales,” advisers said.
The agency also warned that including young people in the bill risked New Zealand breaching the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, it said.
Young people and women who were rough sleeping were specifically at risk if they were moved from well-lit central public spaces, especially at night, HUD officials also warned.
Other agencies were also concerned - Treasury warned about the lack of detail around the financial impact on police, the courts, Crown Law and prisons while the Department of Corrections said modelling showed the charges could result in six extra prisoners a year, costing $120,000 each per annum.
The Ministry of Social Development said that move-on orders would “only respond to perceptions of increased anti-social behaviour rather than the reality, which is that there has not been a marked increase in public disorder offences”.
“The paper acknowledges that in the UK and Australia, move-on orders have been used disproportionately against indigenous populations, the homeless and the mentally ill,” an MSD adviser said.
“Given the discretionary nature of move-on orders, it is difficult to see how we would avoid the same outcomes here in NZ.”
Justice officials pressed on and by November, officials were also reshaping the story the Cabinet paper would tell.
In one email, a policy manager suggested “tightening” the narrative, including the “demotion of MAG (the ministerial advisory group) and focus on justice responsibilities”.
In the final Cabinet paper, the Retail Crime Ministerial Advisory Group became one voice among many, alongside ministers, business organisations, community providers and the public.
And the issue had been re-framed away from a retail-specific complaint and toward a broader justice problem: public spaces felt less safe, businesses were struggling and law enforcement lacked the right tools to respond.
Goldsmith said he had received a range of advice from both officials and the retail crime advisory group.
“It is for the democratically elected Government to determine how it proceeds.”